On Wednesday, a community already traumatized by fire had to absorb another hit.
Thousands of homes were lost in Pacific Palisades on Jan. 7, and residents are now trying to take in the latest reveal, federal officials’ finding as to what started the blaze.
For many, it’s hard to come to terms with.
First, authorities charged Uber driver Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, with intentionally setting a fire on Jan. 1 that, days later, would roar to life as the Palisades fire.
Second, they learned that fire crews thought they had extinguished the blaze, called the Lachman fire, on the 1st. In fact, it was still smoldering. Winds on Jan. 7 brought it back to life.
Rinderknecht has not entered a plea and could not be reached for comment.
“I was happy to hear it wasn’t some dumb teenagers, because we thought that it was fireworks,” said Matt Kunitz, who lives in Pacific Palisades. “My wife and I thought that would’ve destroyed [some] kid’s life … whereas, in this case, it sounds like an adult arsonist.”
At the Palisades Garden Cafe, residents spoke among themselves about the sorrow surrounding the fire and subsequent recovery effort.
Kamron Zar, another resident, said the identification might help to bring some “closure” to the Palisades community for the time being.
“I think that a lot of us were just wondering for a while how it started, why it started, who started it,” Zar said. “If this is the person who did it, have them figure out how and why he started it.”
But with many still mired in recovery and reconstruction efforts, Kunitz believes others may not be satisfied with the findings from authorities.
“I mean, the trauma is done, so whether it was intentional or, you know, a fireworks accident, that’s the same,” Kunitz said.
Closer to Skull Rock Trailhead, near the origin of the fire, a neighborhood overlooking both the wilderness and the sea is quiet, aside from the occasional trudging machinery.
The grass near the trail is dry and wheat-colored but slowly recovering in small, verdant sections. There is an occasional jogger coasting down the hilly roads, but the streets are most populated by bulldozers and construction trucks.
Recovery from the fires is slow but ongoing, said Stacy Mitchell, who lives just a mile from the fire’s ignition point.
“Things are going in the right direction, but there are a lot of people I know who can’t [recover and rebuild] because they don’t have money or things like that,” Mitchell said. “It’s not as easy as it should be.”
The state of recovery could be seen Wednesday in the bare wooden foundations of buildings in the process of reconstruction. In the charred ruins that look almost Roman, yet these buildings stood only a year ago. On the busy avenues populated not by residents but by construction workers and carpenters laying the groundwork for a new Palisades.
Mitchell’s husband is a contractor, so she was able to move back into her home much sooner than her neighbors. Though she believes it is a good sign that authorities have arrested a suspect, she said that many were still reeling from the sudden loss of their homes.
“It’s not really bringing any closure to me,” Mitchell said. “I still have to go to Santa Monica to get groceries, or I still have to wait for the post office to open. … I mean I can’t even go out to dinner.”
As she left, Mitchell looked to her left and right — at the sea and to the trailhead — and walked back to her house just past an open construction site.
Jon Brown, whose family lived at the devastated Pacific Palisades Bowl mobile home park, had his own view.
“I think this is only going to infuriate people, to be honest,” Brown said. “They think that they have done something by finding the guy who did it, but they’re really going to fan the flames on what everybody is really pissed about.
“Why wasn’t the fire put out on the 1st?”
Tony Briscoe contributed to this report.
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